talk of love songs
by perfectpro
Summary: Tori and Beck go through friendship, him sometimes leaving for Jade and always returning, and her struggling to see where the cards will fall.


She grabs your hand when you're reaching for sheet music. You tilt your head in wonder at her, and she ignores the knots twisting in her stomach, dragging you back in towards her atmosphere.

You don't mind (not really).

She kisses your lips so softly that you wonder if you only dreamt it, but when you're being yanked into her bedroom you figure that it wasn't only your imagination.

.

Jade dumps you unceremoniously the next week.

You scowl and don't talk for the rest of the day, only mumbling something about being fine when pushed to the point of answering questions.

Everyone gets the message when they walk into Sikowitz's class to find Jade sucking face with some random guy.

.

She walks up to you, places a hand on your shoulder and kisses your cheek gently, pleading eyes prodding you to ask if you're doing alright.

You merely shrug, staring straight ahead at the Los Angeles sunrise. She grabs your hand and sits down beside you.

You're not sure how she found you up here, on the roof of the record company that almost signed Trina, but she doesn't ask any questions so you figure that you don't really care.

"It's alright, you know. To be sad," she clarifies at your raised eyebrow. You scoff, shaking your head.

"I'm fine, Vega," you say after a while. She nods like she believes you, but her eyes are telling a different story.

.

She talks about the stars a lot. Not the Hollywood kind, but the astrology kind. She wants to be a star, she tells you one day when you're both completely shit faced (her off wine coolers and a few fruity tasting margaritas; you off vodka shots and scotch on the rocks).

You nod like you understand and bring her closer for the warmth. You stay out until everyone has gone home or passed out from the party, and even then you sleep on the roof, covered by your leather jacket.

.

The two of you start junior year off in her convertible. You're driving, and she's belting along with some pop song on the radio, of course. You turn the volume down as you pull into the parking lot; she frowns, but doesn't say anything about it, choosing instead to pout slightly with her lower lip protruding.

"Do you hear that?" you ask, shutting the radio off and cutting the pop song short. She shakes her head at the noises students are making to get into the Hollywood Arts building, so you wrap an arm around her gently. "That's the sound of everyone else at this school worshipping us."

Her smile is blinding, and something in the back of your head tells you to remember this moment.

.

Junior years goes by in a blur. You keep your grades ranging from Cs to Bs to As, spending most of your time in the apartment, playing guitar with her voice to soothe the silence. Nothing ever happens except for the chaste kisses she plants on your cheeks and the kisses you drop on her forehead when she's upset. You hold hands with her one day when you feel particularly lonely, and you both know it doesn't mean anything.

.

She gets drunk on New Years in the apartment you've upgraded to. She's only tipsy when she knocks on the door, but a few beers later she hits the full stage of drunkenness, singing along to music that isn't there.

You shake your head at her critically, drinking your own beer quietly. She's a talkative drunk, but you submerse yourself in silence with the alcohol.

"Turn the ball on! I want to watch the ball drop!" she yells at 11:58. You do as she says, and she climbs next to you on the couch when it's on the proper channel. "Daddy used to always get champagne on New Years Eve. Back when they were happy. It's all words now, no emotion," she says, slurring her words ever-so-slightly.

You nod and train your eyes back to where the ball is dropping. 3... 2... 1.

She presses her lips to yours with surprising force a millisecond before 2012 replaces 2011 on your phone.

"New Years kiss, Beck. It's tradition," she whispers with tears in her eyes before acting as it nothing happened.

(It is tradition, you realize an hour or so later. You slept with her on the New Years Eve party Trina was throwing.)

.

You see Jade the next day, and she looks great.

"Will you go out with me?" pops out of your mouth before you've even thought to say a greeting.

She glances up at you from over her sunglasses and glares. "Again?" she asks without care in her voice.

You swallow your shock and nod. "Again."

She nods and stretches her hands above her head so that her shirt shows off three inches of her flat stomach, and it may be lust, but you swear to yourself that it's so much than that, you're so much more than that with Jade.

.

You tell her you're going out with Jade on Saturday, three hours before the date. She pauses in the middle of her rant to look at you. "What?" she asks in a whisper, her nails digging into the upholstery on her steering wheel.

"I saw her on Tuesday. I asked her out then. You worried about losing me?" you joke, ignoring how she keeps her eyes locked on the road instead of on yours now. "Come _on_, Vic. You're my best friend."

"You're my best friend, too," she echoes without emotion, still not looking you in the eyes

.

Five months later, right before summer, you're talking with her on one of the rare days you're not with Jade, and she just keeps talking and talking about things and she looks so pretty one instant that you almost call and break up with Jade on the spot. She asks you if you're alight.

You nod vaguely and shut the phone you'd opened unconsciously.

.

You and Jade stop to break up three days later. Jade suggests it, but you agree. It's mutual, really.

"It was mutual, Vega. I'm not in the mood to talk about it," you snap at her when she walks in your apartment with a new CD.

She shrugs and pops in a movie like she owns the place. "You coming?" she asks impatiently, patting the seat on the couch next to her. "_The Hangover_. Your favorite," she bribes.

.

It feels good to have your best friend back, you decide the next day when you wake up next to her on the couch after three more movies. You stretch your arm around her waist, and she leans into you.

This is what junior year should have been like. Nights filled with your favorite movies and mornings filled with waking up next to your best friend, empty beer bottles scattered like lights around you. There would have been no Jade, but there would have been nights on the roof all year long. No Jade, but mornings spent in a hazy hangover and laughing when she can't find her car keys only to discover they were in the moldy cereal bowl on the counter. No Jade, but drinking games with crazy answers. No Jade, but a best friend so blindly bright that stars paled. No Jade, but days spent longing for nights and nights longing for stardom. No Jade, but Vic.

You're not sure which one you want more right now.

.

You and she jump into your routine so fast it makes your head spin. You're making up for the time you spent with Jade, without her. She's making up for lost time, and everything is in a blur. You pour the vodka shots, and she shows you how to make a martini. You get her to try pot (something you've only done a few times), and she turns her nose up after the first joint. You've spent a month in a week.

Five weeks later, all the time is made up. Summer is halfway over, and you have everything in the world.

An apartment to crash in, a best friend's house to crash in (secretly, so her parents never find out), a best friend so amazing you couldn't have asked for anything more in, and a job that doesn't screw up your partying/drinking schedule (who knew the skate store wasn't picky about their employees?).

Life is good, and nothing can bring you down.

.

Jade stops by the skate shop once while you're working. You walk out of inventory to see her running a finger along a brand new model. She glances up and waves casually when she sees you.

"That's a good model. It's a bit pricey though," you start out, wondering what she's here for. She doesn't skate.

She nods. "Meet me at that café tomorrow at two," she directs, picking her bag up from the floor.

You're standing alone in the room before you realize she didn't even wait for your answer.

.

You've just walked into your apartment four hours later when she tears into you.

"Jade called your phone twice since I've been here. _Jade_. She said that she'd see you tomorrow. We have plans tomorrow; you're my _best friend_. Why didn't you tell me you were going to cancel on me for seeing that play? Jade's going to take you away again," she screams hysterically, wiping furiously at her eyes.

She's crying and screaming, and you don't know how to make things better.

You open your mouth to say the plans didn't overlap, but she presses her mouth to yours before you can say it.

"Don't go," you beg her once she's pulled away, tears still swelling in her eyes. It's not a plea for her to stay and fall in love with you, but it's not a banishment. She is Vic and Tori and everything you've ever wanted in a person who isn't Jade.

Shaking her head pitifully, she steps out the door with a whisper that if you still want to have plans with her for that play tonight, she'll be ready if you come to pick her up.

A dull ache in the back of your head makes you realize that you miss her already.

.

Jade is sitting in the restaurant reading e. e. cummings when you walk in. She doesn't look up from the page, but shifts so that there's room next to her for you to sit down.

You sit across the table, hands folded awkwardly beneath the tablecloth.

"We're broken up, aren't we, Beck?" she asks, still not moving her eyes from the (apparently interesting) book, flipping a page casually as though she merely asked about the weather.

You sputter on the glass of water you were sipping from, spraying Jade with droplets. She moves her eyes to yours, glaring callously. "Yeah, I mean, I guess so?" you ask, freezing up when her eyes reach yours.

"Then make a move on Tori. She's head over heels for you, and she's also the reason why we broke up. Right?" she snaps, her eyes never blinking, unwavering.

Your mouth is so dry that you can't answer her.

Jade rolls her eyes and puts a few bills on the table for her latte. "Make a move. Rebound. Move on, Beck," she urges after a few beats of silence. "Lord knows I already have," she says with a cruel smile, making her exit.

.

You don't go to pick her up from her apartment for the play. You've been shaking since getting back from seeing Jade two hours ago, because she's right. She's right, almost, and it nearly scares you.

You type out a quick text to her thirty minutes after you would have picked her up.

From: Beck _[469-294-7830]_

To: Vic _[469-673-0198]_

sorry. pick you up in the morning to catch the matinee of it?

She never responds.

.

You're waiting outside the apartment complex she and her family live in when it suddenly occurs to you that you could simply call her to come down. Nevertheless, you walk the two flights of stairs and knock on the door. Trina appears suddenly, her hair in a crazy style.

"What?" she nearly screams, her hangover breath so thick that you nearly puke on the carpet.

You shrug, asking for Vic. She shakes her head rapidly (bad move – hangovers suffer from rapid movements).

"She said she didn't want to see you," Trina says after a moment of holding her head. At your look of confusion, she continues, "Tori said to turn you away if you came looking for her. You're looking for her. Go away, Beck. I've got a hangover to kill. Get out," she yawns, slamming the door in your face.

.

You text her later that night when _He's Just Not That Into You_ comes on MTV. She loves that movie.

From: Beck

To: Vic

you should come over in a few. popcorn and movie night? he's just not that into you is on.

She texts you back half an hour later with a flippant denial.

From: Vic

To: Beck

busy tonight. sorry T turned you away at the door.

You don't bother with a response.

.

The next time you see her is a week later, three weeks before school starts. You're flipping through old records in a music store when she strolls in with André. They're laughing and joking like there's no tomorrow, and you feel a pang of loneliness. You miss her more than ever, and you have half a mind to go over and tell her.

Right as you move to walk over, she links her arm through André's and starts to hum something by The Beatles.

That was what she did with you.

You walk out, not apologizing when you 'accidentally' bump into André and make their arms slip out of each other.

.

She grabs your elbow when she sees you next, three days later. Her eyeliner is smeared and she seems to be on the bad end of a relationship from the tearstains on her cheeks. "I missed you so much. You don't even know, Beck," she says quietly before collapsing onto you in a heap of tears.

You catch her and hold her, walking the both of you over to a table outside a nearby café. "Missed you too, Vic."

That just sends her into a flurry of tears, and she's crying more than she did when you watched _The Notebook_ with her over the past summer.

"You're always leaving me, and I don't know how to make you stay," she says loudly, suddenly. People from the table next to you glance over, and a waiter delivering lemonades slows down to hear the breakdown.

You don't know what to say to that, so you simply hold her a little closer in hopes that it will quell her cries. "Vic, please, I don't leave. I'm always chasing you, and you're always running away," you say quietly.

This causes her to violently shake her head. "No, no, you're lying to me. I'm always here, and you're always leaving. You never stay. I don't want you to leave anymore, but I can't wait for you. I've always been waiting, and you've always been leaving. It never changes, and I can't take it. You're crushing me, Beck," she sobs loudly.

"Don't say that, please," you beg quietly upon seeing a woman from a nearby table give you a glare that could freeze Hell over. "I've never left you; don't say that I have. You're always running away," you hiss louder.

"Shut up! Stop acting like I'm a child who doesn't understand! You always leave me for Jade. She's perfect. Skinnier than I am, prettier than I am, and, hell, she's got a better voice than mine too. You're always leaving me for Jade, and I can't find a way to make you stay!" she yells determinedly, wiping her tears. "What's so wrong with me? What's so wrong with Victoria Vega?" she asks desperately, wiping her eyes of the constant flow of tears.

She's still crying and screaming, and you still don't know what to do.

You just wrap your arms around her and hold her, because, really, nothing's wrong with Victoria Vega.

.

It ends up to where you both ignore the weeks you ignored each other. There are still topics that are untouchable though. You don't ask what she was doing those weeks. You don't ask about the fading scars on her wrists that were fresh the day she came to find you. You can't bring up Jade. Jade is the most potent thing, able to poison both of you with only a mere mention of her name. She clams up whenever you mention Jade, changing the subject and not opening up to you for the rest of the day. She slams herself shut if Jade walks by, grabbing your arm and dragging you along a different route. She doesn't ask you questions anymore, and she barely answers them either if you ask her something. You don't say anything about it, but secretly you think that she's not alright.

Secretly you wonder if she ever was.

.

It's (almost) back to normal when Tori storms up to you after you get out of class and just kisses you, like she's wanted to do it for ages. She pulls away after a moment, and there are tears glittering from the back of her eyes that you don't remember being there before. Her face looks like it did in the café, scared and sad and a little bit angrier than you think she has the right to be.

"I thought you should know," she says simply, pulling away and reaching to her eyes like she suspects she might have started crying. "I just…" Drifting off, she doesn't bother to complete the sentence, because you know what she means. She means the same thing she did when you watched _The Hangover_ that one night, the same thing she did when she cried on you in the street, the same thing she did when she gave you that blinding smile at the start of your junior year. She means she's your best friend, will always be your best friend, but she can't help it if she wants something more.

Your brain takes two seconds to consider these things before shutting off, and you kiss her completely on instinct alone before realizing that this is what you've been wanting; this is not something that it going nowhere. You kiss her hard enough to make the students who pass by you send out well-meaning catcalls and a few phrases you're not paying enough attention to catch. A teacher walks by and idly reminds you that PDA is frowned upon on campus, but she doesn't seem serious enough with the threat to encourage you to stop.

Pulling back, you meet her eyes and wipe the stray tear from them that actually was there this time. "Now I know," you agree with her before kissing her again.


End file.
